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Bratu 220: Illusions to burn.

This peculiar trimotor was designed in the early 1930s by Romanian engineer Romulus Bratu and built in France. Bratu 220’s main feature was its quite impractical (with 20/20 hindsight, of course) three-engined configuration: one 420hp Gnome-Rhône Jupiter engined placed in the orthodox nose position and the other two (230hp Gnome-Rhône Titans) in a push-pull configuration high above the fuselage. First flown in 1932, the Bratu 220 prototype proved to be a quite decent performer, but not good enough it seems to be followed by a production order. Not anything was lost though. “Thanks” to its wooden construction an useful, but ephemeral, role was soon found for the Bratus (two more airframes were produced)…as firewood.